


I Have A Dream

by MidoriKurenaiYume



Category: Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dialogue, F/M, Hospitals, Needles, donating blood and plasma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 10:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12604524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidoriKurenaiYume/pseuds/MidoriKurenaiYume
Summary: When going to donate blood and plasma as usual, Arturia meets an unexpectedly familiar face.





	I Have A Dream

**Author's Note:**

> The only warning is that there's an explicit description of needles and what happens when donating blood or plasma (at least in the country I live in). If it grosses you out, please don't read.
> 
> Titles: comes from yet another Kalafina song, part of the album 'Red Moon' ;) it probably refers more to my personal wishes for GilArt than to this fic, but oh well.  
> Thank you SO MUCH to MimiBlue for her editing!!!

…

…

“The next is… Pendragon?”

Among the people waiting, Arturia looked up from the sheet of paper she had just finished filling in and stood up.

“Please, this way.” The nurse smiled warmly and led her to the doctor’s office.

A white-haired woman welcomed her with another smile, taking her sheet and ID, checking them briefly before entering her name in the computer. Her face brightened even more.

“Ah, a regular donor,” she said kindly, reading through her personal file.

Arturia merely nodded and patiently waited for the doctor to start asking her all the routine yet important questions about her health, from her last donation to this day. Then she brought her hand forward for the doctor to prickle her finger and check the levels of haemoglobin in her blood.

She answered negatively when asked if she had had breakfast or a meal containing lactose in the past eight hours – something like black coffee would have been acceptable as breakfast, but she had not had time for it – and waited as the white-haired woman took her pressure.

Satisfied that everything was in the norm, the doctor beamed at her.

“Will it be plasma or blood today, Ms. Pendragon?”

“Plasma,” Arturia answered easily. She preferred it because, even though the donation took a while longer, plasma was easier to preserve compared to blood and would therefore be more useful. Furthermore, as donating plasma didn’t take erythrocytes from her body, it usually left her less tired afterwards.

Donating blood meant taking something more from her body; the body would replenish on its own, but it was going to need some help, therefore it meant that she would need to eat a little more meat or other iron-rich food.

For plasma instead, since no erythrocytes were taken from her, what she needed to do was only replenish the fluids, therefore she needed to have lots to drink. Besides, plasma could be donated more frequently, a little over every fortnight; blood could instead be donated every four months for males, and only every six for females.

In either case, she was by no means forced to; if she had other engagements or changed her mind about donating, she would simply cancel the scheduled appointment.

Arturia was escorted to another room, made her way to sit down and readily offered her arm to the young nurse, who applied a tourniquet to the arm to find the vein in the inside of her elbow more easily and then, after disinfecting carefully, plunged the needle swiftly into her flesh. The pain was minimal, as usual, and Arturia rummaged inside her bag with her free hand, looking for a book.

The machine was going to draw a small quantity of blood, centrifuge it to separate the plasma from red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets, and then give her body everything back aside from the plasma. The process was going to be repeated several times, so that in the end, she would donate a lot of plasma without losing any other blood component at the same time.

The entire procedure was going to last approximately three quarters of an hour, as it was repeated about three or four times so that she wouldn’t lose too much blood in one go; therefore, she settled herself as comfortably as she could with the intent of reading her book in the meantime.

Before she could focus on reading though, there was suddenly a small commotion coming from the waiting room. Arturia heard a slightly muffled but extremely curt tone before a man appeared, going towards one of the seats reserved for the patients who only did the yearly blood analysis.

The tall man was openly glaring as he took a seat, and to her own surprise, Arturia recognized him.

He didn’t spare her a glance though, and only gave a hard stare to the nurses who had rushed inside after him, and the youngest one could not prevent herself from trembling.

“Well, are you not going to do your jobs?” his voice icily reminded them, spurring them into quick action right away.

They still looked very intimidated though, eyeing him with some actual fright, and he glowered when he noticed the needle shaking slightly in the younger nurse’s hand.

“Such ineptitude,” he growled, clearly on the verge of losing his patience. “How has the level of these hospitals sunk so low? If just using a needle gives you problems, I don’t want to imagine your behaviour during actual surgeries.”

Rapidly, he took the disinfectant to clean the skin and then dismissed the nurses, taking the needle himself and, finding his vein with precision, sank it expertly into his body. The medical personnel attempted to intervene, but he glared at them again, keeping them subdued as he effortlessly filled the required phials without so much as a blink.

As soon as he had completed the operation, he skilfully removed the needle from his arm while pressing a cotton swab against the small injury to stop the flow of blood, and then lifted his arm high to quicken the process.

His eyes flashed with scorn as he regarded the still frozen nurses in front of him.

“Bring the medic responsible of this structure here. Leave my sight before I decide to do worse than fire you.” The dismissal in his voice was menacing, and nothing more than a slight hesitation ran through the nurses before they complied with his request.

As soon as they were gone, he examined his arm, checking if the blood flow was indeed reducing, and muttered under his breath, the scowl still prominent on his face, “What a herd of incompetent fools.”

“You are certainly not making their job any easier,” Arturia calmly pointed out from the other side of the room.

His head snapped in her direction, and she realized he had not noticed her earlier. His eyebrows rose in slight surprise, before a slow smirk appeared on his lips.

“Why, how unexpected. Arturia,” he drawled out, his eyes fixated on her face.

She inclined her head minimally in greeting. “Gilgamesh.”

His eyes left her briefly to scan the machine to which she was attached, and the small twist in his features told her he recognized it.

“Plasma donor, I see,” he immediately deduced, and she inclined her head again in affirmation. “Not very surprising for your character.” He stretched slightly, taking care not to let his arm drop. “You certainly chose to invest your time oddly today.”

She would have liked to shrug, but she deemed it wiser to keep still, as the nurses had all left the room and there was no one who would have been able to help her if she accidentally moved the needle’s position the wrong way.

“It’s a choice. No one forces me to spend a Saturday morning here now and then, but I’m fortunate enough to be eligible for donating, so I choose to do so.”

His smirk became slightly more pronounced.

“Ah, but of course, it’s not a one-time occurrence. You’re a regular donor.” He averted his gaze from her leisurely. “Why does that not surprise me.”

She didn’t give him a reply, because she suddenly had to wince slightly. The cycle in the machine had changed, starting to give her the first dose of her blood sans plasma back and, while it didn’t hurt, it was still a rather foreign sensation.

He noticed her grimace and scoffed in her direction.

“How ridiculous of you to do this if you can’t handle it.”

She would have felt offended, if she hadn’t been used to his sarcastic bluntness by now, therefore she only had to make an effort not to roll her eyes.

“It’s merely a bit uncomfortable,” she replied calmly, critically eyeing the needle still inside her flesh, showing that she was clearly not bothered by his biting comment.

His smirk didn't falter, as he had expected nothing less.

“You are doing this for nothing though. So foolish.” The fingers of his free hand grasped a plaster, to take the cotton swab’s place in covering the small wound that had now stopped bleeding. “Ah, I almost forgot – of course you don’t do this for nothing. You do this for people who might be in need. So _selfless_ ,” he said, a distinct snark to his voice.

She ignored him, deciding it was high time for her to give attention to her neglected book. She would have liked to mention his unnecessarily rude behaviour towards the nurses, but she knew from experience that it would only exacerbate his attitude. He was a medic as well, one of the most famous surgeons in the city in fact, therefore anything she said to him wasn’t going to have the impact she wished it had.

The cycle in the machine changed again, starting to draw blood from her once more.

“As soon as you’re done, you’re having coffee with me,” came his unexpected words suddenly, as he stood straighter in his seat.

Carefully, she closed her book, knowing that it was rather unlikely that she would manage to give it any attention as long as Gilgamesh was around.

She had known for a while that he had an interest in her, given that it wasn’t the first time he asked her out, but she had not thought he would _order_ her to go out with him. However, while her intention of refusing him as usual didn’t change, she could give him the benefit of the doubt; after all, conversations with him _could_ occasionally be very interesting.

“I’m afraid I’m not,” she replied, her voice rather flat as her eyes met his firmly. “You have obviously forgotten that there are certain small privileges when donating blood and plasma, which include receiving free breakfast afterwards, therefore I’m most certainly not going anywhere with you. Besides,” and at this she frowned slightly, “given that I have turned down all your attempts at going out with me ever since we got to know each other, what made you think I would accept today?”

He smirked again slightly, which made her instantly wary.

“It wasn’t a request,” he suavely specified.

Her expression hardened instantly. She shouldn’t have bothered making an effort at being reasonably civil in refusing.

“I don’t take orders from you,” she coldly informed him, but his smirk only widened, causing her to raise an eyebrow.

“It wasn’t an order either,” he enigmatically replied, making her frown, before he finally clarified, “It was a _statement_. The hospital dining area is closed, you will have no choice but to go to another nearby bar. Which, as you well know, I happen to own.”

Of course. Aside from being a famous surgeon, he was also one of the richest people in the world, therefore he owned most of the places in town.

She narrowed her eyes at him, but didn’t get the time to add anything else, as in the same moment the nurses, the white-haired doctor and another person who was likely the head medic entered the room. Gilgamesh leisurely stood up from his seat, giving them all a chilling glance before indicating the door.

“I have changed my mind about firing anyone, but I will still _speak_ to all of you.” There was a not-so-subtle tone of threat in his voice, and the personnel could not mistake it as they made their way back to the door rapidly, while he followed them slowly.

As for Arturia, one of the nurses came to check on her, making sure everything was proceeding as it should, but she wasn’t focused on the machine attached to her body any longer.

She couldn’t help finding it oddly puzzling that Gilgamesh had chosen not to bring his very real threat into fruition. It was presumptuous of her to make such an assumption, but, could it be that their brief conversation had actually… calmed his rage down a little?

Before he left the room, he met her gaze briefly, and a slow grin curved his lips upwards.

“I will endeavour to wait for you outside. You will not escape me this time, Arturia.”

She stared at him defiantly.

“We will see about that, Gilgamesh.”

His grin widened, and in spite of herself, she had a hard time in holding back a small smirk of her own.

As much as conversations with him could have some appeal, she was _never_ going to go out with him unless he made the effort of stepping over his ego to both _ask_ her out first and acknowledge her _choices_ second; not just in her answer to him, but also in her life. About things she _chose_ to do, things like donating blood and plasma, for example.

Until he recognized that, she wasn’t going to back down – and he could keep on dreaming.

But she knew, knew well in fact, and in her case it wasn’t a dream, that if he truly cared about getting to know her better, he was going to come around sooner or later.

…

…


End file.
